Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2011. I recognise the words of the previous speaker, the member for Moreton, who said that we have to understand from where we come. In my maiden speech I referred to Randal Ross from Red Dust Healing in Townsville, who does exactly that: to figure out where you are, you have to know where you have come from. He takes it back all the way to hunter-gatherer times and uses the example of the American Indians, the way they have come forward and the way that they have treated their own history. So I acknowledge those words.

This bill amends the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005 with some minor changes related to governance and business arrangements established by that act. This includes, in the first schedule of the bill, changing the title of several general managers to chief executive officer in recognition of the changing nature of their roles, allowing information held by Indigenous Business Australia to be disclosed where appropriate and removing references to the availability of review for two Aboriginal Hostels Ltd schemes which are no longer in place. For someone who has lived his life making sure that his title is as generic as humanly possible, I find that people stickling for titles like chief executive officer, general manager and chief general manager to be for business cards alone. However, if this brings them into line with other organisations then all the better.

I support these undertakings. I recognise that the title of chief executive officer will bring about consistency for a number of similar roles and will offer the nominal recognition necessary to attract quality applicants who have held a chief executive officer position on equivalent authorities. For that reason, as I stated, while I do not put a lot of stock into actual titles, I understand that you cannot go from being a chief executive officer of one organisation to a general manager of another and think that it is a promotion.

One of the important parts of this legislation that I would like to acknowledge is the changes being made to secrecy provisions for Indigenous Business Australia. These are very important. There are certainly sensitivities regarding the information IBA obtains as part of its work, and while it must exercise the level of discretion expected by its clients it must also be able to work with government agencies to allow for the effective delivery of Indigenous affairs policy. These changes will allow this to happen. Finally, the removal of the references relating to Aboriginal Hostels Ltd is an appropriate tidying up of the act where it references the now defunct schemes. Let us get rid of them entirely. I support that as well.

That is, however, where my support finishes. I do not support the second schedule of the bill, which proposes that the minister be able to delegate the authority to appoint a person to act as the Executive Director of Township Leasing or the Coordinator-General for Remote Indigenous Services. The member for Moreton said this is minor legislation, but I respectfully disagree. This is entirely tied up with the minister being run by a department, it is tying it up with red tape and it lacks the respect and the independence for the organisation and the independence of the office of a minister of the Crown.

Of course it is expected that the people holding these positions will at some point be away from those positions for a prolonged period. It happens in every organisation no matter the colour of your skin. Of course it is necessary that a temporary substitute should be found when this is the case, to ensure that the respective offices can continue to deliver the services to Indigenous people that they are tasked with. But why does the government think that the current procedure, in which the minister appoints an acting replacement, is such an onerous burden that it feels the need to make a change? It is no onerous task for a minister to make that appointment as opposed to deferring responsibility to the department and removing one more independent piece of that responsibility.

Additionally, there is a vital need to maintain separation of these positions from the department whose responsibility it is to deliver these services. Already the government has let the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs slowly absorb both the positions, compromising the ability of the people assigned to them to initiate and drive unbiased reform. If we allow the minister to give the department the power of appointing these positions, it will just further muddy the waters of independence from the department that we must ensure is maintained. For this reason I support the amendment that the coalition has put forward to remove schedule 2 entirely.

While speaking about Indigenous organisations and their management, I would like to mention the Townsville Aboriginal and Islander Health Services, an organisation in my electorate that delivers culturally appropriate health care to Indigenous members of the Townsville community. I am very lucky that my electorate also encompasses Palm Island. As a regional centre we have a fantastic hospital in Townsville and fantastic health services, and we act as a base for the entire region from as far north as the tip of the Cape and Thursday Island, west to Mount Isa, through all the Gulf country and down as far as Rockhampton. I have previously raised concerns of mismanagement and inappropriate behaviour in the way TAIHS has been run. These allegations are not new and were not new when I raised them. They were first raised in this House by the previous member for Herbert, Mr Peter Lindsay. I have tried unsuccessfully to work with the then board in trying to manage change and investigate reports of mismanagement. The Townsville community has come together and highlighted instances of apparent waste, mismanagement, and possible corruption in the running of a number of organisations. It will be to this government's eternal shame that these cries, emitted by those in our community in greatest need, went unheeded. Recently, acting on a report in the Townsville Bulletin newspaper, the Queensland Department of Communities appointed a funding administrator to TAIHS. From there the administration, including the CEO and the managing director, has been removed. An open invitation to rejoin TAIHS has been enthusiastically received. This organisation, which is so important to my community, was down to 23 members, all of whom were part of one family. This government has sat there and listened and watched this happen since 2007. I demand—

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